Nucleic acid amplification reactions, such as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), are generally template-dependent reactions in which a desired nucleic acid sequence is amplified by treating separate complementary strands of a target nucleic acid with an excess of two oligonucleotide primers. The primers are extended to form complementary primer extension products which act as templates for synthesizing the desired nucleic acid sequence. In such processes, the nucleic acid sequence between the primers on the respective DNA strands is selectively amplified.
The activity of a polymerase can be improved by joining a sequence-non-specific double-stranded nucleic acid binding domain to the enzyme, or its catalytic domain (see, e.g., WO0192501). Such modified polymerases exhibit increased processivity in comparison to the unmodified enzymes.